1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of computer software and, more specifically, to monitoring customer service requests for an information technology system.
2. Description of Related Art
With the wealth of information that is now available and the ease of access to this information that is provided by computers, many, if not most, businesses utilize computer extensively to enable them to provide their goods and/or services to their consumers efficiently, to monitor company assets, to target marketing campaigns to the appropriate consumer audience, as well as enumerable other users. Computers and networks, in order to accomplish these objectives, have become increasingly complex so that more of these tasks may be automated as well as providing the businesses with the ability to perform tasks not possible to do by humans that improve the businesses net income.
However, most businesses are not in the “computer” or “information technology” business. In order to improve their efficiency, rather than hire and train its own information technology staff, many businesses choose to contract to information technology (IT) specialists to install and maintain appropriate computer and network hardware and software necessary for the business to achieve its business objectives. These contracts, among other things, specify the level of service of the information technology components that must be maintained by the IT provider such that the business is able to function effectively. Typically, the contract requires the IT provider to maintain a helpdesk to which the business' employees may call to notify the IT provider of problems with the computer system, network, or software.
The helpdesk agent assigns each reported problem a service ticket. The type of problem and severity of the problem allows the helpdesk agent, with reference to the contract, to determine the time frame in which the problem must be resolved. The contracts also typically call for the IT provider to periodically provide a status update to the business for problems that have not been resolved by their specified due date. Failure to meet these due dates and status updates may cause the IT provider to suffer severe monetary or other penalties as prescribed by the contract.
However, when the IT provided to the business is very large and complex, which is often the case, there may be many things that can go wrong requiring the IT provider to service. Thus, at any given time, there may be numerous tickets in the system requiring monitoring. Because of the multitude of tickets and the fact that different tickets have different due dates and status update requirements, it is not unusual that a help desk user may miss certain deadlines. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a service ticket monitoring system that will alert the help desk user when certain important tasks are approaching, thereby enabling the help desk user to perform his/her task more efficiently.
Managers of the helpdesk can also monitor the level of service. For example, if the managers login to the system and see an unusual amount of calls, they can take action such as, for example: increase staff for a shift, determine why so many callas are coming in (e.g., virus), or simply be aware of the call volume for the helpdesk. Managers can also login to the system to determine if the helpdesk agents are performing their tasks quickly and efficiently.